Forbidden Music

DIV With National Socialism's arrival in Germany in 1933, Jews dominated music more than virtually any other sector, making it the most important cultural front in the Nazi fight for German identity. This groundbreaking book looks at the Jewish composers and musicians banned by the Third Reich and the consequences for music throughout the rest of the twentieth century. Because Jewish musicians and composers were, by 1933, the principal conveyors of Germany’s historic traditions and the ideals of German culture, the isolation, exile and persecution of Jewish musicians by the Nazis became an act of musical self-mutilation. Michael Haas looks at the actual contribution of Jewish composers in Germany and Austria before 1933, at their increasingly precarious position in Nazi Europe, their forced emigration before and during the war, their ambivalent relationships with their countries of refuge, such as Britain and the United States and their contributions within the radically changed post-war music environment. /div

Offers a study of the Jewish composers and musicians banned by the Third Reich, and describes the consequences for music around the world.

Prater Violet concerns the filming of an unashamedly romantic and commercial musical about old Vienna. It is a stinging satirical novel about the film industry, trifling studio feuds, and the fatuous movie Prater Violet, which, ironically, counterpoints the tragic events on the world stage as Hitler's lengthening shadow falls over the real Vienna of the thirties. At its center are vivid portraits of the mocking genius Friedrich Bergmann, the imperious, dazzlingly witty Austrian director, and his disciple, a genial young screenwriter-the fictionalized Christopher Isherwood. When it first appeared in 1945, Prater Violet caused a fury of critical speculation and acclaim. Edmund Wilson called it "a deliberate historical parable," and Diana Trilling's Nation review said, "Prater Violet is the most charming novel I have read in a long time... It is a book written in the author's own person, yet utterly without ego; it is a novel about movie writers which is yet a novel about the life of every serious artist; it is a book without a political moral, but a profound moral-political statement; it is gay, witty, sophisticated, but wholly responsible.

Lives in Music analyses interwoven patterns of mobility, change, and power in music and dance practices. It challenges some commonly accepted conceptual tools that are ubiquitous in anthropology today, including cultural hybridity, transnational networks, and globalization. Based on seven “itineraries” that are the result of extensive ethnographic long-term field research efforts, the processes of geographic and social mobility, transformation, and power relative to music and dance practices are explored in different parts of the world. Seven writers provide life stories constructed through ethnographic techniques and life histories and supported by a deep knowledge of local customs.

"When Songs are Forbidden: the True Story of a Children's Choir in Romania" is about a famous children's choir I started which dared to sing praises to God during the cruel dictatorship of Nicolae Ceauºescu. Part One describes how I grow up in a poor family and suffer persecution at school. I have many troubles and am later expelled from the university for my testimony. I live in semi-hiding in a church for seven years and there I listen to foreign broadcasts by night and compose words to the tunes. They become children's songs and spread like fire at a time when writing Christian songs is a crime. In Part Two the reader meets the children in the choir as we travel all over the country, singing forbidden songs in praise of the God of the Bible. We have many adventures together and the Lord often turns trouble into laughter. The children shine for the Lord as they tell their own stories of courage in face of persecution. As the leader of the choir, my life is in danger from the secret police. The Lord uses Jimmy Carter to rescue me from Romania and I receive political asylum in the United States. This book will inspire Christian children and teenagers everywhere to serve the Lord.

First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book compares, from a historical and sociopolitical perspective, the respective systems and contents of music education in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan in response to globalization, localization and Sinificiation, with particular reference to Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei.